“Rogues can be tanks. Mages can be healers. Nothing’s off the table”
SEASON OF DISCOVERY’s been just weird enough to hook me
MY SHAMAN HAD TO TEAM UP WITH THREE OTHER BUDS TO FLAME-SHOCK A MAKURA
Iplayed World of Warcraft vanilla back in the day—before any expansions came out—and I was bad at it. I was a human rogue with ‘leet’ in his name, and I somehow levelled into my mid-40s without even touching poisons. In my defence, I was 12 years old at the time.
Ultimately, I was too much of a noob to really get it. Before WoW Classic happened I dipped my toes into private servers, and I didn’t really get it as an adult either. WoW Classic —as Folding Ideas’ Dan Olson puts it—isn’t actually that hard, at least, not in the classical sense. It’s a game where patience and foreknowledge trump mechanical skill.
The appeal for try-hard guilds lies in going back to the game armed with a ton of knowledge and cleaning house. It’s like using a time machine to travel to the past, then defeating a renowned swordsman because you know how to make a gun.
As an adult, I enjoy games that challenge my muscle memory— learning bosses in Sekiro or perfecting a challenging rotation in FFXIV.
Vanilla WoW doesn’t push those same buttons, so it was a fun nostalgia trip, nothing more. One thing I did miss, though, was this sense of going on an adventure.
ADVENTURE, QUEST
WoW and its modern contemporaries aren’t designed around patience anymore, which means an emergent adventure isn’t really in the cards. This sense of exploration was dented by WoW Classic, too—it’s a “solved game”. In vanilla WoW, it took 156 days for a guild to take down Ragnaros. In WoW Classic, it took six.
Enter Season of Discovery, WoW Classic’s weirdest experiment. It manages to shake off the shackles of knowledge by saying, “No changes? We’re going to make all the changes.” The max level cap for this season is 25, and all classes have new ‘runes’ which shake up the meta. Rogues and Shamans can be tanks. Mages can be healers. Nothing’s off the table.
What’s more, these runes have to be gathered by going on quests—not those ‘kill five boars’ quests you’re used to, but actual, genuine quests, most of which don’t appear in your quest log. They’re weird and demanding in a way modern MMOs can’t be any more.
For example, to unlock an AoE fire spell that let me tank, my Shaman had to team up with three other buds to flame-shock a Makura out of a block of ice. Some were your more typical questlines, sure, but you mostly just get to go on adventures.
Now, everyone has something in common with my 12-year-old self: nobody has any idea what they’re doing. There are mods to help, but the player base is figuring this stuff out together. And you know what? It actually rules.
AHRIMAN LEAPS BACK ONLY TO THROW RED WAVES TO TEAR ME APART INCH BY INCH
The Ghostrunner series of games are as cool as they come. The futuristic cyberpunk megastructures. The slick first-person combat. The dynamite synthwave beats that fuel every jump, slide and/or wall run. The cyber-assassin protagonist who wields a katana. Even the name itself, Ghostrunner, is ridiculously cool. It immediately offers intrigue.
Developed by Polish studio One More Level, the original debuted in 2020 and did reasonably well in terms of sales at 2.5 million units sold globally. While it was great to see a Best Action Game nomination for Ghostrunner 2 at The Game Awards 2023, in a way I still think it’s quite overlooked by general audiences. It’s essentially Blade Runner meets Mirror’s Edge for anyone looking in from afar, something that you would think would be able to grab the general consumer in an age where Cyberpunk 2077 is mainstream.
Having spent over half a dozen
THIS MONTH
Parkouring my way through a futuristic dystopian city. ALSO PLAYED
Fortnite, Starfield
hours in the sequel, I’m impressed by its extensive combat improvements, new additions —like a flashy Kawasaki-inspired motorbike—and refined gameplay. For one, the controls have seen an overhaul—a risky move when precision is key to its overall flow. It took me a bit of time to get used to the new layout, first baulking at the change within the opening minutes. It was only when my arsenal expanded it became clear this was a smart move.
PERFECTION
With its one-hit, one-kill, do-or-die structure, every move needs to be pulled off to perfection to proceed. Sure, checkpoints exist. And trust me, I’m glad they do considering the death count racked up. But where’s the fun in that? Ghostunner pushes me to beat every level without taking a scratch. The feeling of defeating Ahriman the Destroyer, the first boss fight encountered, in one sweet, smooth run is up there with the same satisfaction as a Souls-like boss.
Starting on a free-standing platform, Ahriman leaps back only to throw red blistering waves ready to tear me apart inch by inch, before then trying to circle behind for a fatal blow. I’m having none of this, slashing away his health meter until a good quarter is removed. I’m then kicked back into the darkness—is this the end? No! I’m saved just in the nick of time by a mysterious soldier who provides a grapple opportunity, catapulting me back to the battle.
A few minutes on, I’ve been able to whittle away Ahriman’s health and finish the fight for good. Victory!